So Cameron has to choose between a powerful business lobby and the future survival of bees and thus the whole human race?

No prizes for guessing etc...

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I want to address this a bit. I'm all for bees and their disappearance is a problem. However, I have my doubts that the human race would cease to exist.

Most of the crops we depend upon are wind pollinated: corn, wheat, oats, rye, wild rice, some tree nuts. Where we run into trouble is with many fruit trees, almonds, lemons, etc. Only about 30% of what we eat comes from bee pollinated crops. That would certainly be a problem, but it probably wouldn't mean our extinction. Bees are already extinct in some parts of the world. There's parts of China where they send workers out to apple orchards with a feather duster to pollinate the trees.

That said, I'm still getting rid of my front yard and replacing it with bee friendly flowers. Its going to be interesting when the city sees my crop of milkweed. We'll see if they give me grief for my "noxious weeds." I planted those for the monarch butterflies, whose numbers have dropped so far the US government is considering putting them on the endangered species list.

Bayer, Syngenta, Monsanto, and their ilk do need to be confronted. There's growing evidence that their money-making schemes often come with high price-tags for the planet and us. In confronting them we need the most accurate information possible. Otherwise, we just get dismissed as hysterical or uninformed.

was gratified to see an abundance of bees busy among the rather splendid crop of thistles in the nearby meadow.It almost seemed that there were as many bees as there were clumps of thistles.These were all what I would call honey-bees though dull orange abdomen not the large bumble-bees that used to be so common.

was gratified to see an abundance of bees busy among the rather splendid crop of thistles in the nearby meadow.It almost seemed that there were as many bees as there were clumps of thistles.These were all what I would call honey-bees though dull orange abdomen not the large bumble-bees that used to be so common.

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That's part of the problem. Bees like things that humans consider weeds.

I should have been more specific. In the US, the use of Round-up Ready seeds has led to many fewer weeds in corn fields. Bees don't particularly care for corn. They consider it "starvation food." They like clovers, thistles, milkweeds, etc. The acreage of those things has decreased with the increase in use of glycophosphate. We're also planting more acres to human food that used to be pasture/native prairie.

A 30% drop in food would be more than enough of a reason for war, civil unrest, and mass starvation.

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Yes, it very much would. That's not the "extinction event" that I keep hearing about in bee preservation circles. We might very well go extinct, but its likely to be global climate change that causes it.

I remember when I was seven or eight, used to bust round the house of an acquaintance of my grandmother. He kept bees and grew grape vines. this was obviously back in the day when you could bust round an elderly person's house and spend the day looking at cool stuff and doing cool shit without society deeming him a nonce.

His bees were ace. I was fascinated. He used to bust into them without any white overalls and stuff, so, so did I.

I got stung once after I sat my non too hairy arse on one of the poor buggers, but love bees

Fortunately, amateur beekeeping is on the rise (although since varroa it requires considerably greater pharmacological knowledge). Urban bees are possibly a truly great hope for survival of the species since many gardens are now pesticide free and are offering the diversity which is missing in rural habitats (especially arable areas such as East Anglia).

Fortunately, amateur beekeeping is on the rise (although since varroa it requires considerably greater pharmacological knowledge). Urban bees are possibly a truly great hope for survival of the species since many gardens are now pesticide free and are offering the diversity which is missing in rural habitats (especially arable areas such as East Anglia).

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The problem is we are now getting a lot of bees, but not a lot for them to actually eat.

I moved last year and now have a small garden that backs onto a railway bank, it's all a bit wild at the bottom of the garden so we're leaving it as we've had quite a few bees and butterflies who have also been enjoying the flowers we've planted. We're gonna try to keep it this way, downside was some runner beans we planted got destroyed by blackfly.

We're pretty new to gardening having lived in flats for years so it's pretty much a live and learn experiment going on.

I suspect that the problem is more honey robbing...and these new flow hives which literally drain every smidgeon of honey might be a boon to beekeepers (the joys of separating dead bees from your extractor) but they simply mean the bees end up with an impoverished diet of sugar water. Bees are brilliant foragers and will survive on the meanest diet of old ivy and goat willow, bramble and willowherb - all weeds in huge abundance where there is a scrap of soil.

BC Blues, all you really need to know is to grow as many simple natives as possible and avoid all heavily hybridised double flowers, many of which will be sterile.

BCBlues : re the blackfly - spray with cold soapy (washing up liquid) water. and plant marigolds as companions to the beans.
Late flowering plants - buddlia is late up here (Northumberland) mine had just started to show the spikes, but not the actual flowers, yet.
The bees are currently attending to my honeysuckle, let me have a think about other flowers ...

BCBlues : re the blackfly - spray with cold soapy (washing up liquid) water. and plant marigolds as companions to the beans.
Late flowering plants - buddlia is late up here (Northumberland) mine had just started to show the spikes, but not the actual flowers, yet.
The bees are currently attending to my honeysuckle, let me have a think about other flowers ...

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I cut the runner beans down just below where the flies were and just wiped the odd ones off. Someone advised me this was the best solution other than pesticide which is when i decided to keep the garden bee friendly. I'll keep the washing up solution in mind though as i planted the beans from seed and they grew like crazy, must be the Birmingham soil.

To sort out my Blackfly I used a hairspray sprayer with washing up liquid and a bunch of mashed up garlic, couple of times a week, never managed to get all of them but it got like 85%-90% of them away until the tomatoes were old enough they lost the taste.

Supposedly water with crushed tomato leaves soaked for 24 hours also works.